Thursday, April 6, 2017

The episode seems to have passed - Clint Frazier did NOT do the unthinkable, and request to wear Mickey Mantle's number - but I'm still WTFing over a fake news story, which sounds like something hatched by Vlad Putin's teen strike force in Macedonia.Suzyn Waldman - of all people - told radio listeners a rumor so toxic that it could have basically killed Frazier's chances in New York. It sounded like Ian Kennedy times ten. (Remember how Kennedy, as a rookie, supposedly pissed off the Empire by not humbling himself enough after a bad outing? His trade ticket was punched.) Nobody - not even Bryce Harper - could come to NYC and demand number seven without setting off a firestorm. And if you suggest that an unproven rookie did such a thing - yeesh, you're stabbing him in the back.Add to it that Frazier already had dipped a toe across the line with his long red hair, which the Yankees demanded he cut. This would have been a knockout blow to his chances of ever being cheered in New York.So the question is simple: Who stabbed this kid in the back, and why? Somebody told Suzyn that volatile falsehood (she has since apologized.) And why did she go public with it? This didn't come from a beat reporter. It was Suzyn - who treats every Yankee like a son - and she surely understood the implications:

You don't compare yourself to Mickey Mantle. You don't ask for Mickey Mantle's number. You don't tangle with the memory of Mickey Mantle. And yet she spread the rumor on the radio. Wow.It was on Deadspin within two hours. So what happened here? Are the Yankees institutionally unwilling to accept a brash, confident - perhaps arrogant - rookie? Because Frazier won't be the only one. And of three young pitchers that we once had - Ian Kennedy was the one most worth keeping.

Previously, I have railed against the Yankee's " country club" code for dress, face and head. If you watched the Rays beat us in the opening series, you will notice that most of their stars are hirsute beyond, " lumberjackism."The Yankee attitude on facial ( or head ) hair is so Republican, so 1950's, that the franchise appears ridiculous.

It is like the only principle Hal ( I'm not cheap) Steinbrenner can adhere to ( instituted by his Dad), despite inheriting the billions.

The Yankees are like the school boy who shows up to elementary school in a velvet suit with an apple in his hand. Everyone wants to beat the crap out of him, and rub dog feces on his suit.

We cannot win this way. And we won't.

The Yankees look like assholes and Frazier only had dreadlocks. He has been ruined for us, though he will become a Jay Buhner memory once we part ways. Mark this down; Frazier will be traded away and then become a superstar, Yankee killer.

Adding to that the " number 7 controversy" is, in my view, a fireable offense. Suzyn just became the Kelly Anne Conway of the Yankees.